Requesting Prayers: Every Church Needs to Develop Privacy Protocol

I sent a prayer request to a pastor’s personal email. The next thing I knew, a deacon from the church was posting a message on my facebook wall about praying for me. What this communicated to me was that the pastor who received the prayer automatically put it on the prayer chain, somebody in the prayer chain picked it up and remembered that I am on facebook, so figured they could follow up about it on my facebook wall….well intentioned, wanting to let me know they are praying for me.

People who post on my facebook wall may not realize that my kids and their friends all follow me, and as ‘friends’ see everything that gets posted on my wall. For example, what if I needed prayer for something I didn’t want to share with, say, my parents, or my kids – something that they might not be ready to hear about? This particular prayer was about my sister, my kids' Godmother, facing cancer. Luckily, my kids were already aware of it. But what if they hadn't been? What if they had to find out about their Godmother's illness on my facebook page?

But wait, it’s not like I posted a plea on facebook. I went out of my way to make the request directly to a pastor – as opposed to an anonymous prayer chain submission. So how safe is it to ask a pastor for prayers? Certainly this particular pastor is not safe.

However, there was another pastor from the same church who I emailed asking for a prayer, and he contacted me back, and prayed for me. Simple and direct. In addition, he followed up two weeks later to check on me and the object of my prayer request.

I was amazed and felt so cared for. It was very safe. I felt like God was there with us in the process. Like this was and is indeed the way in which the body of Christ cares for itself.

What do you think? Should churches come up with protocols in this electronic age of reaching out? Should I be concerned about who prays? As long as a member of Christ's body is praying for me - why do I care? Shouldn't I just be grateful?

Christian Parents: It Takes More Than Church & School

A study conducted in July 2009 by Focus on the Family and sponsored by the Church Communication Network revealed that 64% to 94% of practicing Christian High School Seniors leave the church…Lose their religion…Forget their faith.

Where Do We Need To Evangelize...really?

Before you run off to Africa with your bottle of water, please note where we really need Missionaries...

These Facts:

At the beginning of the 20th Century about 71% of the professing Christians of the world lived in Europe.

By the end of the 20th Century that number was 28%.

43% of Christians now live in Latin America and Africa.

In 1900 Africa had 10 million Christians (about 10% of the population). In 2000 that number was about 360 million (about half of the population). This represents the largest shift in religious affiliation in the history of the world on a single continent.

There are 17 million baptized members of the Anglican Church in Nigeria compared with 2.8 million in the US.

Every Sunday more Anglicans attend church in each Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the US combined.

The number of practicing Christians in China is approaching the number in the US.

Last Sunday more Christian believers attended church in China than in all of (so called) Christian Europe.

Kenya has more people in Christian churches on Sunday than Canada. More believers worship together in Nagaland than in Norway.

More Christian workers from Brazil are active in cross-cultural ministry outside of their homelands than from Britain or Canada.

More Presbyterians in Ghana attend church than in Scotland.

In Great Britain more than 15,000 foreign missionaries were hard at work evangelizing the locals of Great Britain. Most of them from Africa and Asia.

This is from John Piper as quoted from Mark Knoll’s, The New Shape of World Christianity

Bless Bloggers!

I’ve noticed lately, now, that a lot of churches are podcasting. And as a result, we have the opportunity to listen to a lot of pastors from a breadth of churches. I’ve noticed a trend developing across the board where lately pastors have begun to spin anti-blogger rhetoric in their sermons.

Here’s how: during a sermon, if they are dealing with the topic of love (which is often), and more so if the scripture motif is “love your neighbors as you want to be loved”, and even more pinpointed if the message touches on respecting authority figures and dealing with sin biblically; it has become typical and acceptable for a pastor to say off-handedly, things like, “don’t leave the church bitter and blog about it”, or “don’t vent about church leaders in a blog,” or “don’t become like a blogger and vent about all the faults of a church.”

The rhetorical figure of ‘blogger’ is a catch-all for what not to do or be, what is ‘bad’, and gives us religious critics who blog a bad rap to say the least. It also sanctions more pastors to participate in the rhetoric, it pits bloggers against the church, and it edifies the false belief that church leaders are immune to discipline – just because they are ‘working for Jesus’.

So, of course, I am going to blog about it…in order that bloggers can proceed biblically and not bitterly, and also to point out to these pastors (who shall remain un-named) that by demonizing a category called, ‘blogger’ you yourself – pastor – become the demon. Corruption, mismanagement, mean treatment, and lazy Christianity are sins that should be purged from church. And there is a guide in the Bible on how churches are to address sin corporately with discipline, forgiveness, and compassion…and yes, purging. But, most churches and church leaders, and especially pastors, do not follow the Bible when it comes to purging sin from their ranks.

Therefore, sometimes, people who go to church who are hoping to find Christ, find rather, one or two leaders in a team of church leaders who are sinful and not remorseful, greedy and not giving, stiff-necked and not open-hearted…self-centered and not Christ-centered. Therefore, sometimes, new people (or even long-time members) leave the church turned-off at least, and embittered at most – but in both circumstances, chances are, they will not be interested in church anymore…they may perceive a disconnect between Jesus and church. Because they expect church leaders to be responsible, biblical, and yet caring.Then sometimes, out of frustration of not knowing how to ‘fix it’ or cope with their feeling helpless, the embittered person blogs about it. And just as non-biblical as the corrupt church staff avoids dealing with sin within their walls, so the blogger may deal with their discontent non-biblically.

We are probably talking about less than 1% of all ‘backdoor dropouts’* becoming bloggers. Then maybe less than 1% of THAT number produce a blog that is read beyond their own eyes. So the issue is small, but it strikes close to my heart because: 1. I am a blogger, 2. I had a horrible experience with a church staff and dealt with it biblically – and was not wrong in blogging about it, and 3. My luck has it that I am tasked to call for repentance among church leaders and encourage Christians to seek Christ and stay in a church community. It’s my ministry, my machine, my crib, my thing. I own it, steward it, and will do well for God by it.

Pastors: First of all, who was the number one person in the entire NT to speak out against the established church of his day? Who corrected, scathingly rebuked, and exposed church leaders’ blind leadership? JESUS. So, pastors, do you believe that if Jesus were alive today, that he would keep quiet about what he would see in God’s church, or do you think he would rebuke and expose it? Do you think he would try to reach people using the postal service, TV, internet, newspapers, radio, church sanctuaries, theaters, music, or social networking…AND BLOGS? Or would he keep all his comments to himself? Maybe pray about it occasionally, alone, privately? If you are a pastor who spins a negative image towards bloggers, whether they are bitter or not, you may be missing a message from Christ himself and therefore demonizing the very One you are here to glorify. Who else demonizes Christ? Satan. So, pastors, lest you wish to be like Satan himself, I would urge you to use the criticism that emerges from who you think of as bitter bloggers as a tool for examining your church staff. Bless the one who persecutes you. Don’t persecute them. You know better.

Further, if your church, indeed, has leaders (including yourself, pastor) who are driven by pride and greed – it is your biblical responsibility to purge that sin from your team. It just is. You do not need to purge the person, but you do need to purge the sin. So if you have a sinful leader who cannot let go of their own sin through fasting, prayer and worship – then they do not belong on your staff. Get rid of them (or you will be held responsible for their inequities). So says Paul and the Law through Moses.

Bloggers: You know, bloggers, you just are not in Christ if you are using your blog to damage someone’s life. Period. You need to examine your motives. If you just want to cause the pain that you feel yourself, then go ahead and complain, expose, etc. But DO NOT DO IT IN THE NAME OF CHRIST. Christ did not argue against the church leaders of his day without being in line with God’s will. If you feel like you are doing God’s will, then test it: Is what you write bringing glory to God or glory to you? Does it make Jesus look like a hypocrite? If what you are complaining about is not qualified biblically, then you should not complain. If you don’t want to honestly resolve the issue (whatever it is) for the betterment of God, then you should not identify yourself as a Christian while complaining about the Christian church.

Here’s a great way to go about resolving sin in the church when you feel you have been wronged by church leaders or a pastor. It’s three steps. Only after you have done all three steps, and still have no positive change for Christ, then write about it – but by stating the data - -not your opinion…AND with the intent of doing well for Christ. When you get caught up in your own opinion, you are putting yourself in a position of judging -and that is a process only for God. We bloggers are not judges.

Here’s how to biblically address being sinned against. First: go directly to the person you believe sinned against you. Face to face. Talk it out. Second: If you come to no resolution, go to that person with another Christian face to face and talk it out. Third: If still not resolution is gotten, you are supposed to bring the problem in front of the congregation. The third step is where it gets sticky because there are probably no churches in the modern world that practice this biblical principle (unfortunately).

In my case with church staffs, I did 2 of these steps all the time while working with church leaders who sinned against me. I never brought the other person in front of the congregation. At best, I brought the problem to the senior pastor – without the other person being present. And even though I dealt with my experience with sinful church leaders as biblically as possible, and blogged just the facts – not my opinion of the facts, I still regret the horrible situation I was in. I regret not praying more, not blessing my persecutors, and not staying.

I blog about my experiences as a church communicator in order to bring light to a very dark world of blind leadership. It does not happen in every church. However I can tell that it is my ministry because God somehow gets me involved with churches that are in need of repentance among the staff. I do not like the lot I have been cast. It’s not fun being rejected by church after church. And I get a queasy feeling every time I meet various pastors who want to hire me or use my services – because I truly believe that God is trying to plant me inside. I get hired to help with marketing and communications, but I end up helping them with issues of trust within their peer group. And the process is usually messy.

However, my best outlet to let the world know what is happening, and that the average person is not alone in feeling like the church sometimes holds a double standard over society’s head, the thing that gives hope to other church communicators who feel isolated and ill-treated, so far, is this blog.

So pastors, I will blog about it and fairly. I believe that if you are a pastor who is interested in pastoring a flock, eventually, you will appreciate people like me who take the time to thoughtfully blog about the inequities that can prevent people from going to church.

*Backdoor is a church industry term referring to those who enter the front door of a church, but slip out a proverbial back door never to return. Church leaders in America constantly struggles with the question of how to close the 'back door'.